Don't Close Door To Tech Students

Published: Friday, February 11, 2005

TEXAS LAWMAKERS have the opportunity to make higher education available to all who qualify. In many instances, granting access to higher ed may well produce a family's first-generation college graduate.

With the loss of previous government support, university tuition is facing close scrutiny in the current session of the Texas Legislature.

In fact, Texas Tech already has been forced to increase tuition. Last year, Tech's Board of Regents increased the university's portion of tuition from $56 to $76 per credit hour while the state increased its portion of tuition from $46 to $48 per credit hour. A fact that undoubtedly closed the door for many.

Tech officials said this week they plan to limit tuition increases next year to between 5 and 7 percent.

Chancellor David Smith, Tech President Jon Whitmore and TTU Health Sciences Center President M. Roy Wilson were in Austin this week pressing their funding priorities with lawmakers, reported The AJ's John Reynolds.

Last October, Chancellor Smith said, "Continuing to raise tuition would not only pinch growth at Tech by pricing students out of the market, but thwart it." We agree.

Even with current tuition levels, a lot of middle-class families are being forced to make hard choices about higher education.

Tech's student population tends to be more middle class than other state universities, positioning Tech to help the state achieve its stated goal of adding 500,000 more students and closing incomelevel gaps by 2015, Mr. Reynolds reported.

The state must come through with additional funding, though, because relying on tuition increases to cover costs will drive the middle-class student as well as the first-generation college student or minority college student from higher education, Chancellor Smith said.

Tech is in a difficult situation - just as public K-12 education is in general. Our Legislature must be held accountable to the citizens of Texas and address the formula funding needs of all education.

Lubbock's delegation to the Capitol, Sen. Robert Duncan and Reps. Carl Isett and Delwin Jones, all understand Tech's importance to the region and to the state. "It's kind of in the legislators' hands," President Whitmore said.

Texas Tech's leaders repeatedly have said they must hold the line on the cost of higher education so that the door is not closed in the face of all but the elite. Clearly, they must have legislative support in order to do so. As we have said editorially before, Texas cannot afford to close the higher ed door to one more family.